Post navigation

Papas Can Be Piggy, by Georgie Wood

Back when I was a sullen teenager who lived his life by smoking marijuana in the attic while playing sixties pop music over and over without respite I absorbed lots of chatte by my favorite recording artists. I’ll bet you did too. I absorbed these little “bits” without apparent discernment. Case in point: Paul McCartney’s little throw away line on the album “Let It Be”one can hear him say as he prepares to sing the title song and as the tape is rolling” Papas can be Piggy, by Georgie Wood. And now I’d like to do “All the Angels Come.” (Reader’s note: you can’t hear this on the link I’ve provided, you have to play the album.)

I’ve been carrying that little bit of brio ever since. I can hear Mr. McCartney’s falsetto and I’ve even upon occasion tossed off the line myself as though I’m having a minor experience of Tourette’s–that is, I just say it and I have no evident reason except that Sir Paul says it and keeps on saying it if you listen to the album all of which is to say that perhaps the Beatles can cause neurological distress but that’s another matter and I don’t feel strong enough to take on that subject this fair morning.

The real Georgie Wood (who is often known as “wee” Georgie Wood) is a British music hall legend who is a person of diminutive stature–that is, he is a dwarf as they say in the vernacular and its quite interesting to note that his mother put him on the stage and then took all his money and that in turn Georgie would have preferred to be an attorney. Meanwhile I like what he has to say in The Guardian about being patronized:

“Mr Wood said cheerfully that one of the worst things about being tiny was being patted on the head by well-meaning ‘grown-ups’. Another was that people assumed that small brains go with diminutive bodies.”